The Sixers are hiring Bobby Jackson as an assistant coach, making him the first addition to Nick Nurse’s coaching staff.
Bobby Jackson is set to join Nick Nurse’s Sixers staff.
The Sixers are hiring Jackson as an assistant coach, a source confirmed Sunday to NBC Sports Philadelphia. Marc Stein first reported the news.
Jackson’s last job was as head coach of the Stockton Kings, which is the Sacramento Kings’ G League affiliate. He led Stockton to a G League-best record of 25-7 during the 2022-23 regular season. The Kings lost a tight game to the Sioux Falls Skyforce in the playoffs and the Delaware Blue Coats (the Sixers' affiliate) ultimately won the G League title.
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Before his first season coaching Stockton, Jackson led the Kings to the Las Vegas summer league championship.
“I told them training camp was going to be hard, but I kept preaching teamwork, chemistry, having each other's backs, defending at a high level, making other teams uncomfortable, and taking things away,” Jackson said following that 2021 summer league title, per a NBC Sports Bay Area story by James Ham. “The offensive side of the ball will come, as long as we approach it in the right way.”
Since retiring following a 12-year NBA playing career, Jackson has served in a variety of coaching roles. In addition to his work with the Kings, Jackson also spent time as a Timberwolves player development coach under Rick Adelman, who’d coached him in Sacramento. He seemingly had no hesitation about pushing players.
“(Adelman) called to say I was working the guys too hard,” Jackson said in 2013, per The Minneapolis Star Tribune. “He said, ‘I want them to have some legs when training camp starts.’ I had to cut the workouts to one a day.”
NBA
Jackson’s playing experience will presumably be useful in coaching young Sixers guards Tyrese Maxey, Jaden Springer and De’Anthony Melton. There are certainly some similarities between Maxey and the 6-foot-1 Jackson, who was a speedy, high-energy guard capable of game-turning bursts off the bench. Jackson earned the NBA’s Sixth Man of the Year award for the 2002-03 season.
Sam Cassell, who’d been influential in Maxey’s development the past three years, is moving from the Sixers’ coaching staff to the Celtics’.
